short balls: santoro wants to shine, the fall of cruella de villiers, and centre court’s ready to go!

Ask and hope you receive? Since the clock’s a-tickin’ for Fabrice Santoro, he has asked Wimbledon organizers to schedule him a match on Centre Court — an honor that’s never been bestowed on this veteran in the 13 times he’s played this grass Grand Slam (espn.com)

Cruella de Villiers: It’s awesome to see the ATP’s top three — Roger, Rafa, and Nole — take charge and hope for spots in the Players’ Council. If they succeed in getting their hands in these dealings, it looks like CEO Etienne de Villiers will get the boot. (NYT)

Centre Court is ready to go: The fixed roof is back, along with the two main trusses for the retractable roof (which’ll debut in 2009). And a continued thumbs up for their increase in equal prize money for the men and the women.

Maria’s meek side: The Telegraph recently published an interview with the world No. 2. A few bits:

— She turned down a cameo role on Desperate Housewives.

— On her celebrity: “I still find my celebrity weird – it’s always weird, you know, when I see my image on the cover of a magazine. That’s very, very strange. I remember for a while I had been getting a lot of praise from people, but I never felt as though I deserved it until I had won grand slams and held the world No 1 ranking. And then I thought, ‘OK, all that talk, I understand it now’. But before then it was just random.” I hope she’s ready to possibly accept a Teen Choice Award for Female Athlete of the Year in early August.

— On the rigorous WTA travel schedule: “The worst thing about my life is not being able to see my friends and family for a long period. Living from hotel to hotel, it’s sometimes a nightmare. There have been numerous times when I’ve woken up in a hotel room and I’ve forgotten which city I’m in. So I’ll be phoning people at 2am to ask which city I’m in.”

Nole’s blogs:The Times‘s interview with Nole touches on his blog. “Well I like to have fun with it,” he says. “Most of my fans are younger people and I don’t think they want to read stuff like ‘I played a good match today. My forehand was going well. My backhand was not so good’. These things are not interesting. What is interesting is what the players are doing in the locker rooms. Are they good guys? Bad guys? How are they off court? Of course, I never go too far with these things but always to the limit, just to make them laugh. I get a lot of positive feedback.” Awesome.

—

Why America is fat: Read about EaterLA’s post on the birth of the Starbucks Frappucino.

Beautiful acne: The oft-bowtied Alber Elbaz has jumped into bed with Acne, the Swedish denim brand who is also behind the reissue of Bjorn Borg‘s iconic Tretorn shoes. This collaboration will drop at Barney’s and Bergdorf in November with jeans, dresses, tuxedo jackets, belted trenches, and a few accessories.